Pembina's latest additions to website note evolution of Prince Rupert terminal, as well as the rules for vessels transiting to the facility

Pembina's LPG terminal at Watson Island
(from the Pembina website)

Pembina Pipelines has provided a short glimpse into some of the remediation work that took place on their portion of Watson Island as they prepared the former pulp mill site for use as the newest shipping terminal on the North Coast.

As part of an Earth Day contribution to their website last month, the Alberta based energy company makes note of the repurposing of the land for its new use.

Their overview begins with a bit of a history lesson for those not familiar with the Watson Island story:

The Prince Rupert Terminal (PRT) is a propane export facility, and it’s located on Watson Island, B.C. Historically, Watson Island was home to an operating pulp mill facility from 1955 to 2001, when the pulp mill went into bankruptcy and the facility was abandoned. 

Through tax recovery, the City of Prince Rupert became the owner of Watson Island. In 2015, the City began decommissioning and demolishing the former mill's infrastructure. In 2017, Pembina leased a portion of Watson Island for PRT. 

 The former mill site was considered a contaminated site under provincial legislation. Contaminated means the site had concentrations of chemicals or other materials in the soil or water that are above allowable levels. Once remediated, the former mill site had good potential for redevelopment, also known as “brownfields.”

Among some of the key elements of their presentation:

Determined to re-purpose the area for other industrial uses, Pembina undertook extensive work including: 

Spending approximately $12 million on the remediation process which included: demolishing and disposing of the pulp mill's structures and foundations remedial investigations of soils and groundwater; and delineation and disposal of contaminated soils. 

Removing over 77,000 m3 of contaminated soil. 

Obtaining third-party confirmation of the effectiveness of risk controls.

Their review also includes a timeline of how the Project evolved from start to Grand Opening of last month.

The full presentation can be examined from the Pembina website here.

With the Terminal now in operation, something that is also new to the energy company's information stream are their Rules and Notice page for visiting vessels. 

A thirty two page document that lays out the guidelines for transit and departure from their terminal facility,

You can review that document here.

For more notes on the Pembina LPG terminal see our archive page.